


Angels With Dirty Faces

by Wicker



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Film Noir, Grave Robbers, Hell Trauma, Hellhounds, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Might be more violence in this than is usual canon, Mutual Masturbation, Naked Cuddling, Native American/First Nations Culture, Prankster Gabriel, Sam Winchester Gives Oral Sex, Sam's legendary lack of self esteem, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved, Whump, Witches, casefic, weight loss mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 18:10:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20050354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicker/pseuds/Wicker
Summary: Sam finds a case just a handful of hours away from the bunker, doesn't exactlylieto his brother, and takes off all on his own to investigate a pair of dead twins. He finds himself knee-deep in a mysterious set of coincidences including lottery wins, an amnesiac angel, and a haunting bartender with a knowing smirk and a sweet tooth, who may or may not be imaginary.





	1. The Hook

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for this year's[ Supernatural Canon Big Bang](https://spncanonbigbang.tumblr.com/) was originally supposed to clock in at about 10k words, but If there's one thing I'm good at, it's having ambition. So here we go!
> 
> Please reblog these if you have a tumblr for sharing them around!  
[Fic Masterpost](https://spncanonbigbang.tumblr.com/post/186688597846/title-angels-with-dirty-faces)  
[Art Masterpost](https://anyreiart.tumblr.com/post/186672105821/art-for-spn-canon-bang-story-by-burningwicker-art)
> 
> I am so, so grateful to [anyrei](https://anyreiart.tumblr.com/), who did the wonderful art for this and encouraged me to keep plugging ahead. Their speed, professionalism, and all around sweet demeanor was just what I needed to get through the process of writing this whole thing, which got much bigger than I'd planned.  
Thanks to my beta reader, Lydia, who asked lots of good questions about plot and knows her way around a semicolon.

[(Art by Anyrei)](https://anyreiart.tumblr.com/post/186672105821/art-for-spn-canon-bang-story-by-burningwicker-art)

* * *

It was funny, the things that tripped Sam’s research sense. He didn’t have to really worry about anything for the first time in months, and by all rights he deserved to relax, but the internet was _ right there. _

And at his fingertips, trouble was just a couple of clicks away. 

“Twins Found Dead After Consecutive Lottery Wins: Friend Sought For Questioning” 

He blinked several times and sipped his coffee as he read that headline over and over. He could hear his brother whistling somewhere in the bunker. Dean wouldn’t catch him, he thought as he clicked on the link. Not that this was anything he had to _ hide _from Dean, he just didn’t like picking up a case that Dean would dismiss. 

Not that this was a case. Not _ yet, _ anyway. 

Carl and Byron Chandler were identical twins, and Byron had won the lottery in May. Both brothers were single, young, and would be enrolled at Truman State University in the fall. One week after Byron won a modest jackpot of 870K, Carl won with a ticket purchased at the same convenience store- this time a little under 1.2 million. The odds were astronomically against it, but the Missouri State Lottery commission couldn’t find a reason to deny Carl the money, and so they paid out. Both brothers had decided to keep their winnings secret, but of course, now that they were both deceased, things were public and the unusual coincidence made it national news. 

Byron had been killed two weeks ago, in his new Nissan when a logging truck took a turn too fast, and Carl’s death… well, there wasn’t an official cause of death just yet, but he’d been fished out of a creek near downtown Jefferson City. Their friend, Jimmy Fancher, was being sought for questioning.

Sam thought the deaths were beyond a strange coincidence. He dug deeper, and found several news reports about the discovery of the body, the fast public release of his name, and the lottery wins. Jimmy Fancher had been seen in the area, but the police hadn’t named him as a suspect just yet, although his reticence made him seem awfully guilty.

After about twenty minutes of excavating and finding nothing, Sam contemplated drinking while he started watching videos of local tv news coverage. There was a cluster of homeless people in the middle distance behind the newscaster as she reported overlooking the river; they were packed in together, waiting for the cops to clear the scene— it was obvious that their tents were closely bordering the water, and the police had evacuated the encampment while they searched through for evidence. 

Sam saw a tall man in the back of the crowd, shoulders square, jaw clenched as he stood still like a statue, watching the water beyond the tents. He was dirty, hadn’t shaved in some time, and had some sunburn on his cheeks, and a knit hat hid most of his hair. 

But it was still unmistakably Gadreel. 

He paused the video. Stared at it. Rewound and played through again, cursing as the camera operator panned away after less than five seconds. 

Sam stood up and crossed his arms, frowning. There wasn’t enough clear footage to remove all doubt, but the incredible coincidence, coupled with the lottery winning twins… it certainly wasn’t _ nothing. _

Okay, so he was now pacing around on the floor. And mentally running through his go-bag. He was getting low on toothpaste and conditioner, but he was good. He told himself he was just going to go take a look, and see what he could find. It probably wasn’t him. 

He also didn’t really know what he was going to do, if it really was Gadreel. He knew he’d died; sacrificing himself to allow Cas to escape Metatron’s clutches. But Gadreel had also crawled around in Sam’s head, imprisoned him in his own mind while he used him to murder Kevin. 

Sam was clenching his jaw, and had to take a moment to relax and force himself to calm down, to pack his things in an orderly fashion, to make an inventory of his guns and ammunition. He pulled out cash from their stash and shoved a wad of twenties into his pocket, and snatched up a pair of car keys. 

Standing in the doorway of the garage, bag in hand, Sam suddenly realized that he was about to run away without a word to his brother or Cas. It was pretty dumb, if he was being honest.

Sam dumped the bag in a car— a Pontiac, not the Impala. He had to do this without Dean, and he’d sooner eat a fried twinkie than take his brother’s car and have to hear him complain. He walked around the car and pulled out his phone, and decided to actually _text_ Dean as he opened the garage door. 

It seemed very mature. He poked out _ “Going on day trip to Missouri. Call you when I get in.” _

As he put the car into reverse, the door to the bunker burst open. 

Dean shoved the phone in his pocket as he jogged over to the car. Sam stopped and rolled down the window. 

“Hold on. _ Where _ are you going?”

Sam took a deep breath. “Missouri. Near KC... Jefferson City. Four hours.”

“Well… why?” 

He looked at his hands on the wheel. “I think there’s a case. Might be a rabbit’s foot, worst case scenario.” He didn’t think about why he didn’t want to tell him about Gadreel, he just knew that Dean would object. It felt like an embarrassing secret.

“I can get ready in five minutes.”

“Dean, no,” he interrupted. “It might be nothing. Just a bizarre couple off coincidences. And you need to tune the Impala, right?”

He made a face, and shrugged. “Okay. Yeah, I do. Let me know when you get in and… y’know, call me if there’s anything at all weird.”

Sam exhaled slowly and nodded. It was an incredible compromise, considering Dean’s need to take responsibility for everything. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” 

Dean made eye contact with him for half a second, and then nodded and looked away. 

Sam backed out and drove away. Sometimes he thought about how good they were at avoiding talking about their feelings, and how good they were at keeping secrets. Those should be bad things, really, but at times like these, Sam was grateful for their emotionally stunted natures. 

If he needed to cheer Dean up, he’d tell him he hated the car, it felt cheap and plastic, insulated and nondescript. The cd player worked, though. He drove east, windows down, blasting one of his 90’s Radiohead albums. 


	2. The Arsonist

Sam cruised the outlying areas of the town, and found its historical district without much effort. He could see the Missouri River behind their museum, and mentally ruled that area out for where the news cameras had been, and where the body had been found. The river was massive at this point, and a body in the water would have been carried away east towards St. Louis quickly. 

He also couldn’t see any tents, tarps, or other makeshift shelters. 

The search began in earnest as he cruised around the town in ever-expanding circles, finding that the place had a large prison, surrounded by suburban sprawl, and two libraries. He stopped where he saw a tent by a creek and got out of the car, standing around, but then he saw a few boy scouts in uniform nearby, setting up a practice camp stove. 

He felt like a paranoid failure. Sam got back into the car and drove off, mentally chastising himself for pursuing what might have been a hallucination. He called Dean as he headed for the Lakeside Motel, an isolated strip of a dozen small rooms he’d seen south of downtown.

Dean picked up on the second ring. “Hey Sam.”

“Hey. I’ve gotten in, pulling up to where I’m staying. Lakeside Motel.” 

His brother huffed as he sat down. “Yeah? So you ready to tell me about the case?”

“Like I said, not sure there is one yet. You’ll see it in the news, it’s weird enough— there was this set of twins that both won the lotto, and then they both died in separate incidents a couple of weeks apart. The police are looking for a friend of theirs, I’m going to tag along.”

“Murder?” Dean yawned. 

Sam snorted. “The second one might be. I’m going to suit up and visit the Jefferson City morgue. The first one was a regular old car accident.”

“Let the cops handle it if it isn’t weird, allright? And call me if it is.”

“You got it.” Sam hung up.

Check-in at the motel was a little more rigorous than the shabby facade would have suggested, and Sam had to stand and wait while an older woman with half a dozen rings on each hand inspected his I.D. at the front counter. He knew the forgery was high quality, but he didn't really feel like he looked like a John, much less a John Bonham.

Eventually, she took hits cash and gave him a room key. He smiled at her, only to have it returned as a flat stare, like he'd already gone. 

The room was musty, but clean, with a queen bed that was a little sunken in the middle. Sam set his bags down and changed into his suit, thinking about the case, and not the angel that was bothering him, that might not even exist, who was probably a hallucination. As an afterthought, he put the usual wards on the doors with chalk and laid salt under the windowsill. 

At the police station, he went in with his badge and as usual, found a hilarious amount of easily accessible files, and was even allowed to enter the morgue where the autopsy had already been conducted. Nobody even attempted to check his credentials by calling the number for the field office. It was just as well, Dean was probably elbow-deep in grease and carburetor parts. 

The Medical examiner was an older man, hunched slightly in his lab coat. He had his glasses lined up just so that he could see the slide that he was working with, and seemed perfectly content to ignore Sam, as well as a dead body on the table, and their office manager, Mandy, who’d walked him down from the dispatch desk. 

She seemed unphased, and her giant fake pearl earrings glinted seafoam green in the light. “Doc Robbie, this is John Bonham from the FBI, could you walk him through the autopsy?” Sam straightened up and tried to look like a John, and wondered if he was subconsciously imitating his father. 

“I’m not done yet, Agent Bonham. Looking at the stomach contents next.” He seemed vaguely bothered by his presence, but was polite, which could have meant that Dr. Robbie would have been bothered by just about any interruption. The woman from dispatch left. 

Sam went to look at the body. It was laying on a metal table, not yet sewn back up, nude and indifferent. 

Carl’s expression was one of vague surprise, but the slack jaw was probably just from being dead. There were wounds on the scalp, abrasions around the shoulder, but it was hard to tell if it had been from a beating or from an unfortunate fall. It didn’t look like he had been in the water very long. 

Dr. Robbie made a note in his file and stepped away from the microscope. “So, I imagine you’d like to know what I’ve determined so far.”

Dr. Robbie’s nametag, now that Sam could read it, read Dr. Rohit Das. He wondered if his coworkers had even tried pronouncing it or just found him a jaunty nickname. “If you’re not too busy, yeah,” Sam replied. 

“Very funny,” the doctor shrugged. “This man drowned, but was likely unconscious. A large contusion at the base of his skull is probably the culprit.” He gestured to an X-ray of a skull in profile, which looked slightly dented around the rear. “It’s a survivable hit, but it’s likely he wouldn’t be able to fend for himself in the water.”

“And is there any conjecture yet on what made that wound?”

“Something round, and broad. It could have been a baseball bat, or a car bumper, or a tree branch. I’m afraid narrowing it down may take some time. There was no detritus in that wound- just dirt in the scrapes along his shoulder and side.”

Sam made a face and nodded. “All right. I’ll let you get back to it, Dr. Robbie. Thanks for allowing me to interrupt you.” 

The man nodded dismissively and Sam left, but stopped first to peek at the mostly empty case file about Carl Chandler and found a last known address and not much else. 

He poked Carl’s house location into his phone and left the station. 

Cases like this were always tough to crack. There were too many threads, and just one big event that could possibly have a mundane explanation— It wasn’t as though Carl Chandler’s body had suffered an attack from a werewolf or a rugaru. And him winning the lottery just a little after his brother? Could be an enormous coincidence— or an astounding feat of fraud. 

Sam assumed he would find a clue at Carl’s last residence, a duplex he rented on the north side of town, near the big river. When he pulled up in the car, he sat for a moment and looked at the site, noticing how it had burned down so hot that the car in the driveway had melted tires in the front. The windows and door were still intact, but every piece of the roof was drooping or caved in, and the paint was dark in some spots high on the walls, like the place had cooked from the inside. 

Sam sighed and got out of the car, walking up to the yard. The yellow tape crossed over the door, so he looked into the window and past the melted blinds. If he needed to, he’d go inside through the back, but from here it looked like everything inside that hadn’t burnt up was a soggy, charred mess. A television had melted off its mounting and was pooled on the floor, strongly resembling a black trash bag. 

He turned at the sound of a car pulling up to the curb, and saw a brown-and-white sheriff's vehicle parking behind his modest, once-stolen Pontiac. They’d changed the plates.

Sam was glad he was still in the suit, with his fake badge at the ready. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and slowly walked towards the car.

“They told me you might be coming this way,” said the officer as he got out of the car. Sam corrected himself almost immediately. Not officer. Sheriff. 

“Yeah, I’ve already checked in at the station, you doing rounds today?”

“Patrol, yeah. We’ve all gotta do a little now and then, keeps the job real. I’m Gus Patterson, Sheriff of this little burg.” 

“John Bonham, I’m with the FBI.” He extended his hand and shook Patterson’s, who clasped his for just a little too long. 

“Isn’t that guy in Led Zeppelin?” 

“My parents were fans.”

He laughed a little. “So I assumed. You’re looking into Carl’s death?” 

Sam nodded. “Yeah, the higher ups suspect some kind of tampering with the lottery, so they’re looking for evidence. I don’t suppose Carl’s place has any intact hard drives?” 

“Oh heck no, that thing was on fire for twenty minutes before we got the call. Everything that didn’t burn melted into puddles.”

“Was it arson?” Sam asked.

“We think so,” he shrugged. “Burned real hot, we’re waiting to hear from labs about accelerants. Lucky the people next door weren’t home sleeping, the heat through the wall in their bedroom might have killed them.”

“You’ve ruled them out?”

“Yeah, they were at the movies. Fire started inside, probably in the hall near the kitchen, and the entire place was locked tight.”

“So the arsonist had keys.” 

“Looks like.” Sheriff Patterson pulled out a cigarette from his breast pocket, and lit it with a zippo as though he had all the time in the world. He reminded Sam a lot of Bobby, if a little thinner, a little more sun-baked. 

Sam cleared his throat. “I’ve heard you’re looking for a friend of the twins.”

“Yeah, we’ve had a hard time locating him, and his name came up a few times. Carl had him on the lease of this place. Name’s James Fancher. Jimmy.”

“Huh. This place seems a little small for two guys, especially since one of them won the lotto.”

The Sheriff shrugged. “The family said they were trying to keep it quiet, which makes sense. If people in _ this _ town heard there’s a lotto winner around, they’d bother him every place he went.” 

“Any leads on Jimmy?”

“We suspect he may be living in his car. We haven’t yet managed to locate his exact whereabouts, but he’s been seen in town. Hasn’t shown up for his shift at Aesops bar since Carl died.” 

“Any other reason why you want him?” 

“Carl’s bank account only has a few dollars in savings. If he knows anything about the account, like who might have access, we need to know about it.”

Sam nodded. “Got it.”

The sheriff sighed and dropped the stub of his cigarette, then crushed it under his toe, smearing the ash in a half-circle. “I better get a move on, lot of ground to cover.”

“I understand. Thank you, Sheriff Patterson.”

“Let me know if you find anything and I’ll do the same. Transparency, inter-agency cooperation and all.” He shook Sam’s hand again, and went to get in his car. 

Sam looked back at the duplex as he pulled away. He figured he could start looking for Jimmy around the places he used to frequent. Aesop’s Bar, for example. 

Driving around the town again, he kept looking for conspicuously tall men. 

At the bar, he left his coat in the car and loosened his tie, and sent a quick text to Dean as he walked up to the wooden double doors of the bar— “Tracking down a lead, nothing weird yet.” 

Inside, the smell of pipe smoke hung in the air, even though it didn’t seem that anyone was smoking. The floor was slightly sticky, and there were at least three neon signs buzzing around the room, flickering now and then, wavering in their support of Corona.

Bars like this were so perfectly suited to his brother that it seemed kind of criminal that Dean wasn’t there. 

Sam sat at the cleanest-looking stool at the empty bar, and glanced at a paperback novel that was sitting there before picking it up. It was a creased copy of _ Blade Runner _, by Phillip K. Dick, and the pages were dogeared and yellowed. 

The lady behind the bar smirked at Sam. “What can I get for you?” 

Sam had already made a decision to stay a couple hours at least, and stake it out. “Rye Whiskey on the rocks?” 

“You got it hon.” She picked up a tumbler and dropped a few cubes in, then pulled a bottle off the rack and put a few fingers in his glass. 

“Do you mind if I read a little and run up a tab?” Sam slid his credit card over the bar- it wasn’t really _ his, _ but it would work for at least another week. 

She grinned, “Sure, stay a while.”

Sam sipped and fought back a blush. She had dimples. He cracked open the book and started reading. He’d gotten into this book in about the 8th grade, but had to return it to the library when his family skipped town when the hunt was over and John found a new case. His father had been dead for years and Sam still felt the pull of his presence, like a well without a bottom.

He drank, read, and tried not to think about John anymore. After the first twenty pages and halfway through the second glass, he felt like he was settled in, and his conscience had to remind him that he was here for a purpose. Not to just read and be on vacation.

The bartender came back and refilled his glass for a second (or maybe third?) time. Sam tried to think of an easy way to ask about Jimmy Fancher, but ended up clumsy and pigeon-toed in conversation. 

“Hey,” he tried, “hey… come here often?” He giggled. Oh shit. “I mean, you work here, right?” 

She looked bemused. Sam reflected that he probably should have eaten something before coming into the bar, and now he was faced with a bowl of pretzels and the yellowed pulp pages of the book in his hands. Whiskey on an empty stomach was stupid. Something he normally wouldn’t do.

“I might,” she topped off his glass. With doom, probably. Or at least the easy recipe for a 4am hangover. 

“Okay, okay, sorry. I’m coming off like your… regular guy at the bar harassing you, but—”

“Hey Tabitha, I need my check, can you get it from the office for me?”

Sam blinked as he computed that he was being interrupted by someone behind him. He sat up straighter and turned his head. It was just a little dizzying. A guy, five foot nine, one-sixty, with curly, short black hair, was motioning to the back of the bar. 

Tabitha, for her part, looked immobile. And kinda mad. “Go talk to Gabe yourself, Jimmy.”

“I quit through voicemail, it’s not a good scene.” 

Sam’s brain caught up slowly, and then screeched to a halt. “Wait, are you the guy?”

Both the bartender and the new guy turned their heads slightly to stare at him. Sam had a flash of shame and grimaced. 

Tabitha sighed. “Listen, I’ll tell him you’re here, Jimmy, but you’ve got to quit in person. He’ll be mad at me if you don’t.” 

“He doesn't have to know it was you, Tab.”

“Listen, I’m not about to sneak in and—”

“Jimmy.” Sam stated, and put down his glass. 

They both turned to stare at him again. 

Sam was faced with an awkward silence, or he could keep talking. He may have slurred. “You’re a wanted man. I mean, we need to talk to you about the twins.”

Jimmy couldn’t have looked more guilty if he tried. 

Tabitha didn’t seem to see, she blinked at Sam, then turned back. “He’s had a few,” she said to Jimmy, behind her hand. 

Jimmy gulped. “Ooookay, well. Thanks, dude. I’ll do that later, huh?”

Sam stood to his full height, which was not a small feat, nor inconsiderable. 

“Hey, thanks but no thanks,” The bartender put her hand on his chest and patted Sam; he felt slightly demeaned by this, and opened his mouth to argue.

Jimmy hit him with a chair from the side. Tabitha shrieked in surprise, and Sam slowly registered that he’d been pushed slightly to the left. His shoulder didn’t hurt so much as it was simply numb. The chair clattered to the floor behind him as Jimmy looked at Sam, flat-out terrified.

“Jimmy, what the fuck are you doing?” Tabitha yelled and immediately backed away, stumbling behind the counter and picking up the phone.

Jimmy darted out of the door, head down, then sprinted down the street at a dead run. 

Sam thought about pursuing him but soon thought better off of it when the room swayed. “Sorry,” he said to nobody in particular. “Sorry.”

Tabitha stood for a moment with the phone in her hand, and then put it down in the cradle again. “Hey, you’re okay, sit down and I’ll get you some water.”

He sighed internally and accepted defeat. “Yeah. Okay. That was Jimmy Fancher, wasn't it?”

She frowned slightly and went behind the bar again, not answering him. Maybe they were friends. In any case, she knew Jimmy better than Sam did. Sam sat down on the bar stool and closed the book, losing his place forever. 

In the pointed silence and the empty bar, she filled a glass with ice and water. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t drink so much on an empty stomach.”

“Yeah, I’m officially cutting you off, sweetheart. Just settle for a bit, and I’ll call you a cab, okay?”

Sam was a bit bummed out. “Yeah, that’s… that’s fine. Can’t drive anyway.” 

“Okay, just drink that, and they’ll be there to get you home soon.”

Sam sighed and touched his glass. He sipped it and it was minty. “I might have a hangover tomorrow.”

“At your size? Nah. Just eat something and you’ll get through it.”

“Maybe I deserve a hangover,” Sam said, maudlin. “I’ve been getting drunk when I should have been trying to find Jimmy.” 

“Why are you trying to find him, anyway?” 

Sam gulped water as he tried to figure out how much to tell this person- his judgement clearly wasn’t in the best shape. “Well, he’s wanted for questioning- I don’t think he murdered his friend, or his friend’s brother. But there’s the whole thing about the lottery money that Carl had going missing and-”

“If he stole the money, why’s he here looking for his paycheck?” Tabitha took his empty glass and refilled it while Sam blinked at her question.

“You’re absolutely right. That’s why he’s just a person of interest.” Sam felt super foggy, but was able to talk without slurring, thankfully. 

She nodded. “I think he’s living in his car. His house burned down.” 

“The condo, yes.” Sam took the new glass of water and sighed. “I deserve the hangover tomorrow.”

Tabitha smirked. “Possibly maybe.” 

Sam smiled into his glass. “Okay. Yeah, I might.” 

“I wouldn’t be too down about it. Do you want me to call the police about him showing up?” 

“Yeah, go ahead. Do me a favor, and don’t mention that I was here. Frankly, I’m embarrassingly out of it.” 

“It’s actually really impressive, considering the size of you.” 

“You’re not drugging me, are you?” 

She gave him a look that he was familiar with, a strange smirk mixed with scorn. Shorthand for being incredibly annoyed by a terrible joke she’d heard before. Sam sighed. “Let me settle up the tab.” 

“Right,” Tabitha nodded and gave him his card and a receipt to sign. “Cab’s here.” 

Sam scrawled on it, stood up and sighed. “Thanks. Goodnight.” 

“Take care.” It was the sort of thing he’d become accustomed to hearing from people who tolerated him briefly, and were perhaps relieved that they weren’t going to be stuck with him. 

He got in the cab and gave half-hearted instructions to get to his motel. The guy understood him well enough, and they drove off into the night, leaving his car. 

The motel was just as shitty as Sam remembered. He landed face-down in the duvet and kicked off his shoes. Didn’t even bother with turning off the light.

* * *

[(art by Anyrei)](https://anyreiart.tumblr.com/post/186672105821/art-for-spn-canon-bang-story-by-burningwicker-art)

The dark road was washed in blue moonlight, stretching far off to either side of Sam as he crossed it, the absence of cars, and indeed the absence of _ all _noise becoming more and more uncomfortable as the situation became clear. 

This wasn’t a real place. It was some sort of dream, or hallucination. He stepped up to the shop set on the sidewalk ahead of him, and looked into the window, the only one lit on the entire street of darkened buildings. It was, to all appearances, a rundown roadside bar, the few occupants sitting at their tables, contemplating their drinks. He could hear the faint noise of the jukebox in the corner playing the Eagles. 

Dean would love it. He loved every bar.

If Sam delayed, there wouldn’t be any point. He’d had enough dreams, waking hallucinations, and alternate realities to last several hundred years. The only way out was through.

He walked through the door and took it in. There was a TV on with a vintage football game playing, an arrangement of dusty bottles on a top shelf, much less used than the shiny row within easy reach. There was a door which swung back and forth in the wall to the left, clearly heading to the rear. Sam sat on a cracked vinyl stool and put his elbows on the polished wood, and waited for the bartender.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he looked down for a half-second, so he jumped when a glass of scotch was set down in front of him. 

Sam blinked several times and leaned back on the stool. The bartender before him was standing still, looking down as he dried glasses. His nose was pointed, dimples framing his round cheeks— and his light brown hair was curled behind his ears. It took a moment to sink in, and then the entrapment of this strange dream made a little more sense.

“Gabriel,” Sam sighed. “Am I dreaming about you or are you really here?”

“Are you sober enough to ask that question?” Gabriel replied.

“I’m not drunk yet.”

“That’s what I meant, pumpkin. Got any more existential questions for good ol’ Gabe?”

“Only if you’re really here,” Sam tasted the whiskey, it didn’t have much of a flavor, or a burn— it was only a dream.

Gabe just shrugged. 

Sam slouched and leaned on the counter with his elbows, cradling the glass in his fingers. “I’m sorry. I wish you weren’t dead. Mostly because there’s just been so many people that I’ve known who died for some reason or another.” 

The archangel had a grin and a twisted eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s a real nice way to talk about the ones who’ve gotten murdered.”

Sam sighed. “Yeah. I mean, let’s be honest, there’s not a lot we can do about that. Except give up.”

“Or reinvent yourself. Go traveling; become… whatever.” Gabe shrugged and stacked clean glasses into a nice arrangement on the back shelf, looking at Sam in the bar mirror.

“You’re not really here anymore. That’s ok. I’m sorry that you went up against your brother and lost.” He took a deep breath. “And I’m sorry we put you up to that. We don’t get to apologize for getting people killed too often.”

The archangel smirked his way and picked up a bottle of fireball. “Yeah. But you’d do it again, right?” 

Sam looked down at his drink and nodded. “Yeah.”

Gabe took a swig of the fireball and grimaced. “I can’t say I wouldn’t do it again. It did hurt, though.” He poured Sam a shot. 

“Yeah, dying usually does.” Sam sipped the fireball, and was shocked by the coldness and spice of the sweet flavor. It was suddenly and abruptly real. His tongue got hotter. “What—” Sam’s shock at the taste was quickly consumed by the heat that started in his mouth and poured out, cascading to envelop his body entirely in flames. An old fear: Lucifer had tricked him again.

He woke up in the motel bed, screaming, pillow thrown, covered in clammy sweat. 

Just a dream, then. The fog in his head was the soft pain of a minor hangover. Sam could be grateful for that at least. 

The decision to shower was almost compulsory, and while he stood under the water as it gradually warmed from cold to tepid to steaming hot, he took deep breaths and focused on the smells and sounds around him to try to convince himself that he was, indeed, in the place he was supposed to be and not, as his worst anxieties stated, still in the cage with Lucifer.

The fear eventually relented and allowed him to wash his face, and hair, and scrub his skin without being afraid that something horrific would occur. Sam hated how badly the dissociations following a flashback could make him feel, how it made him question everything for days afterwards, especially if he was in an unfamiliar place, or somewhere without Dean. 

He thought about going back to the bunker. Yesterday’s dead ends with the case weren’t helping his attitude, and he hadn’t made any headway at all on the matter of Gadreel possibly in the area. 

He shut off the water and dried off. Sam would do one more day, he decided, and if he still had nothing to show for it, he’d head back. 

  
  



	3. Lost and Found

Sam decided to start over at the beginning. He dressed in his usual jeans and flannel, and walked down the street to sit in a diner with a bottomless cup of coffee as the sun came up. He ordered eggs on an english muffin just so that the older woman who was running the place would stop looking at him like he was a lost puppy, and ate most of it before it got too cold. Normal, lonely breakfast of being as unremarkable and ordinary-seeming as possible. 

The yellow light through the diner windows crawled down the walls as the day started, and more cars started to come down the two-lane highway that cut through the middle of town. When Sam felt his legs start to threaten numbness from such a long time sitting, he left cash under his coffee cup and walked the rest of the way to where he’d left the car parked.

Aesop’s was closed, which was good, because Sam didn’t want to revisit the humiliation of the previous night. He left unnoticed. 

The place where they’d pulled the body from the river was near downtown, but just too close to the train station and an industrial park to have much going on on a Saturday morning. Sam stopped his car and got out, adjusting his pistol in the holster he wore concealed under his overshirt. 

There were still the outlines of footprints sunk into the mud, faded over the last few days but undeniable— the police had clearly trampled through the entire scene while combing for evidence. A piece of yellow boundary tape fluttered where it was still knotted around a pipe on the edge of the water. There wasn’t anything to be found in the river.

The nearby encampment looked like it had mostly been moved. A couple of tents that remained were up next to the bike path, trash blown into bushes next to them. 

Sam stood there for a while, as though he didn’t know how to knock on a tent. 

He totally could tap on the taut blue zippered panel, but he didn’t really know whether or not he should wake anybody out of a solid slumber. It was cold out, and he didn’t want to be an asshole— he probably hadn’t even seen Gadreel. Just some skinny tall guy, or a man standing on a box with crisp, blue eyes and a jaw that could grate parmesan. 

He texted Dean while he sat on a cement barrier. “No leads. Gonna fish some more today, will let you know.”

About ten minutes later, he got a reply. “Oky”

Sam sighed. He wasn’t sure if Dean wasn’t awake, or otherwise occupied. He didn’t want to think about what that second option might mean. He was fine with Cas and Dean being an item, in fact, he felt like it was good for Dean to have someone he could rely on, and Cas was going to be with them until the end of the road. But he didn’t like to know the exact whens and hows of their hookups, and Dean had shitty boundaries about that kind of thing.

He heard someone shuffle inside and then a wracking cough. 

Sam sighed and stood up, then scuffed his feet conspicuously near the door of the tent. “Hello?”

Whomever was inside the blue tent went quiet, and eventually, with extreme slowness, opened up the flap. Sam leaned down to see an older man, eyes black and squinting back at him. His hands had large knuckles and scars, like someone who had worked in construction for years. 

“You police?” He asked, congested. 

“No. I’m looking for an old friend, heard he might be around here. Do you know a lot of the people coming through?”

“Sometimes I do.” The man stuck his legs out of the tent, but seemed unmotivated to come out any further. 

Sam knelt down to his level despite the creak in his knee. "My friend is a tall guy, blue eyes...I know he was camping around here."

"What's your friend's name?" He asked, expression leery. 

"His name's Gadreel. He's uh… probably not going by that."

"Well what's he go by, then?"

"These days, I really don't know." Sam pulled out his wallet, watched the man's eyes go to it like a magnet. He felt a little pang of self-disgust, but kept going, showing the edge of a twenty-dollar bill. "He's very tall, sandy hair, freckles. Large jaw."

"Oh. I seen him around, you maybe want to check the camp behind the Walmart," he looked at him, making eye contact. 

Sam believed him. "Thank you, I appreciate it.” He handed him the money, and stood up to leave. The guy took the cash and tucked it away, nodding.

Sam was struck by a sudden chill and a sense of urgency, and he couldn't be sure why. Maybe it was the first solid lead he'd had, or maybe he was struck by the logistical problems of having another angel around, one whose loyalties had never been clear.

But he still had to find him. He owed him that much for his sacrifice.

The back of the Walmart faced a lumber yard, but there was a small lawn between the two, crossed by an disused rail line, and there were a few tents and an RV with a flat tire and cardboard covering the windows.

And there he was. Standing up, facing West, ignoring the entire world and staring off into the sky. 

Sam parked and got out of the car, all without taking his eyes off Gadreel, as though he’d vanish, or take off running. It looked like he was staring at the birds circling in an updraft, and if Sam didn’t know him, he would have thought he was heavily medicated or drunk by the way he was swaying. 

Sam got out of the car, straightened his jacket, and walked over. About ten steps away from the angel, he realized he didn’t know what to say and his steps faltered. 

Gadreel had heard him approach, and slowly turned to face him fully. “Can I help you?” 

It was so off-putting that Sam had to spend a moment blinking at Gadreel’s words. “I’m sorry to bother you, but… I know you.”

He expected a denial, maybe. He didn’t expect the fear in Gadreel’s face. The angel stepped back quickly, and Sam held up his hands. 

“It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you,” Sam pleaded.

Gadreel clenched his fists and unclenched them, keeping his hands down at his sides. “Who are you? Leave me alone.” 

“I’m Sam. I… this is a lot to explain. I know you.”

Gadreel looked towards the tents, and then to Sam’s face. “Who sent you?”

He swallowed a lump in his throat. “No one. Your name is Gadreel. I heard that you died.” 

There was a faltering in his expression, a chasm of uncertainty that was slowly replaced with a frown. “How? How did I die?”

Sam gulped. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t there. You sacrificed yourself to save a friend of mine.” 

He looked at his feet. “No, I’m sorry, that doesn’t make any sense. Leave me alone now.”

Sam felt stupid, he’d handled it all wrong; he bit his lip and nodded. “Okay. First, tell me if you saw something at the river, the night they pulled the body out.”

That gave the angel pause. Gadreel seemed a little thinner than Sam remembered, but it was hard to tell, since he was wearing a down jacket that somewhat inflated his chest and stomach. He had patched the elbows with duct tape. Gadreel looked at the horizon again. “I saw them find the boy in the river. A few hours before, I think I saw a bright flash at the bridge. But that’s it.” 

Sam wasn’t sure what that could mean. “Like a camera, or a lightning strike?” 

“I don’t know.” He sounded stubborn and tired, and more human than Sam had ever heard.

“Come with me, I’ll buy you breakfast.” He could already see Gadreel hesitating and almost felt bad about the offer: Gadreel had to be desperately hungry, given how vulnerable he looked, and if he was feeling unsafe, he was probably human. Powerless, with no leverage. Sam’s stomach sank. “You don’t have to,” he added weakly. 

Gadreel shook his head and bit his lip. Sam’s phone began to buzz in his pants pocket, and he yanked it out like a hot potato. It was Dean. He held it up to his head “Hey, can I call you back?” 

Dean was chewing “I got a thing. A goddamn lead for you. Lotto wins, right?” 

Sam wanted to tell him to shut up. The angel was walking away. He sounded impatient. “Yeah?” 

“Okay, so this is a crazy fucking coincidence, but there’s a major ebay seller in that town, and —”

“Dean, ebay? Really, I don’t care about some goddamn car parts and souvenir pressed pennies.” The wind was whipping around him, making his hair wild, blowing in the microphone.

Dean laughed flatly. Maybe he’d been arguing with Cas. “Princess woke up on the wrong side of the bed, huh?” 

Sam sighed, exasperated. “Yeah, maybe.” 

“Username is Kookookachina. They sell grave goods, Sam.” 

Sam’s eyes rolled. “Great, like dead bodies?”

“More like clothing, dolls, jewelry…” 

He groaned tiredly. “Okay, and… what about the buyer history? How big of a case is this?” 

Dean sounded like he was smiling— happy to have hooked Sam. “I’m digging. I’m more concerned that you have a couple of suspicious deaths on top of a pile of shit that shouldn’t have been out in the light of day at all.” 

“Yeah, that does sound kinda potentially terrible.” Sam had to let go of Gadreel. He couldn’t force the guy into the car, and he couldn’t give him his memories back all at once, either. 

“You sound distracted. Is this too hard?” Dean asked, maybe a little mockingly.

“Hmn? No. No, I can handle it. I doubt the person selling this stuff knows what they’re actually letting loose into the world.” 

“Yeah, fuck that guy. Worse if they do know. I’ll head out tonight.” 

“No, Dean it’s—”

“—Why aren’t you keen on letting me in on this case, Sam? You aren’t trying to give me a vacation.”

Sam was always surprised when Dean was so insightful. “No, you can come, it’s just… not a big deal, we need somebody to be in the bunker to… answer the phones.” 

Dean outright scoffed. “Okay, see you at around 22:00.”

Sam closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay.” He privately hated when Dean used military time.

“Right, see you then.” Dean sounded downright perky. 

Sam hung up and glared at the horizon. Gadreel had walked off and was watching him from the far end of the parking lot, and Sam figured that he had to let it rest. At least he knew that he was alive, and relatively safe. 

As safe as an amnesiac ex-angel could be. 

Sam swallowed his regret and tried to relax; his teeth hurt from clenching his jaw. He got in the car and left. 


	4. Dead Things

The childhood home of Carl and Byron Chandler was for sale, and empty. Sam took a flyer from the bin attached to the real estate agent’s post and looked at it- the photos inside looked totally staged, as though the family had completely moved out. Sam couldn’t blame them. Byron had been living here until he was killed, apparently all of his things had been abruptly moved out. 

He started walking around the perimeter, peeking in the windows, but he couldn’t see anything of actual importance. Until he saw a car beneath a bright blue tarp, over at the back of the property, where the grass wasn’t neatly mowed down. 

Sam felt the hair on the backs of his arms stand up— he pulled the tarp away slowly, like peeling away a band-aid. 

It was a PT Cruiser with a flat tire and a cracked windshield. Two shovels lay between the driver’s and passenger’s side, dirt strewn over the folded-down back seats. There were several garbage bags, and an archaeologist’s sifting box, for finding bone and pottery fragments in soil.

Jackpot.

“Can I help you?” 

Sam heard the voice behind him from a long way off, and gratefully, he had time to compose himself before he turned. There was a woman in a bright saffron suitcoat, white hair coiffed around her head “Yeah, hi. I was looking at the property.” He pulled the flyer out of his pocket. 

“Oh , well, are you moving into the area?” She put her hands on her waist.

He had to come up with a lie on the spot, and it was almost terrifyingly easy. “Yeah, I’m hoping to, I’ve gotten a job at Capital Region Medical Center, and would like to start the process of moving the rest of my family here.”

“Oh? What do you do?” She tucked her hair behind her earrings, a subconscious gesture that meant she was buying it. 

Sam smiled and walked over to her slowly. “I’m an administrator, in the billing department.” 

“Well that sounds like a start to a great career.” 

“I guess it is, yeah.” Sam wanted to chew his leg off to get away from this conversation, but instead she took his arm and started steering him towards the house. 

“So this is a wonderful house to raise a family, lots of room for children. There are parks nearby, and the school is a five minute drive, very well reviewed.”

Sam gulped and walked with her, wondering if he was being overly cautious by characterizing her as being a human barnacle. She was just a little more clingy than an average real estate agent, but that could just be the need to make a sale in this small, shrinking town. He needed to consider that not everything was a facet of the case, but the contents of that car made him think about what Dean had said about grave robbing. He had hit on something big, here. “Yes, I… think I’d like to have a lot of room. For more kids, in the future.” Sam felt like his smile was going to crack his face in half.

“Well, let’s go inside, shall we?” 

The instinct wouldn’t leave him. Sam thought he might need to go inside the house, but the way that she was trying to steer him actually made it seem like he didn’t have a choice. As much as his father’s training made him an outcast, as much as he rebelled as a kid, he couldn’t shed it. He had goosebumps up and down his limbs. Sam stood still, resisting her pull. “Hey, listen, I’m sorry, but I’m meeting someone in about ten minutes in downtown.” 

“Well let me just show you the entryway…” She let go of his arm to get out the keys, and her business cards fell all over the grass around them. 

Sam found himself helping her pick them up, laughing to relieve the tension. “I’m hoping I can come back later, I heard this place was likely to go for quite a deal.” 

“Oh? What have you heard?”

He slipped a card into his pocket and offered her the others. “Well, buyers get better deals when someone who lived there dies, right?” 

Her shoulders drooped. “That can… sometimes be true, although I must tell you, no one has died in this house.”

“Oh, I know, but Carl and Byron Chandler, they were the twins in the news, right?” 

“Mhm, yes, that’s correct.” Her smile had mostly gone. “I suppose you should go and meet your friend if you’re going to get there on time.” 

Sam squinted at her for a moment before recomposing his poker face. “Yes, of course. You’re right. Thank you so much.” 

He went to the car without looking over his shoulder more than once, which was probably not a big win for most people, but today Sam was a little paranoid. 

Back in town, Sam filled up the car at a gas station, bought a bottle of spring water, and parked near where he’d seen Gadreel last. 

He didn’t really think he’d get lucky, but he was also concerned that he’d have to abandon the search entirely once Dean showed up. 

If only he could at least ensure that Gadreel was fed, clothed, and sheltered. That would take some of the weight off. Like he’d told Gabriel in his dream, he and Dean had left a lot of dead over the years, and some of them had been trying to help them. Some were just in the wrong place and the wrong time. Some knew the risks. 

It had been so long since Gabriel had died that he hardly imagined his clever and biting remarks, except when he was alone for a while.  _ “How long do you think it’ll take to fatten up your amnesiac angel?”  _ He would say. 

“If Its Dean’s diet, I’d give it a month,” Sam murmured. He kind of wanted a burger and a milkshake, so got out of the Pontiac to look around near downtown, hands in his pockets, gun warmed through the holster in his waistband. 

The trick to little towns like this, in the great big midwest, was that the chain restaurants couldn’t be allowed to overwhelm the familial and idiosyncratic establishments with dated upholstery and greasy carpet. If they did, the town would move on, new places would be built, larger and surrounded by halogen lights and seas of parking spaces, and the center of it would be full of boarded up storefronts and sad dilapidated liquor stores. He was almost relieved to find an old two-screen movie theater and a comics shop that had closed forty minutes earlier. 

Sam found a hot dog stand whose milkshake selection was in the dozens, and watched the sun set over the rooftops while he had a nutella shake and a chili dog.

Dean would arrive in a couple of hours, and Sam had nothing to show for it, besides a part-time bartender that nobody could find, and a car with a couple shovels in it. 

Just as he was polishing off his shake, he saw Jimmy again, stepping out of the liquor store and walking down the other side of the street with a plastic bag, shoulders drawn up around his ears. In trying to look inconspicuous, he looked even more like a sore thumb. 

Sam started to follow him, tossed his trash hastily in a bin, and found that he could walk on the other side of the street, parallel to Jimmy, and while the guy would look behind him now and then, he never looked across the road. 

He followed him for two whole city blocks before Jimmy stopped, standing in front of a smoke shop to answer his phone. Sam leaned casually against a bus stop sign and took out his phone to pretend to look at. 

Jimmy looked like he was in some sort of intense discussion, his left hand swinging with the liquor store bag as he gesticulated. He shook his head in denial and then looked across the street, right at Sam. 

Sam pretended to text. He bit his lip as he poked his home screen. There was no reason to assume his cover had been blown, but the impulse to run was strong. Jimmy wasn’t looking away. And he didn’t look angry, he looked frightened and desperate. Sam stayed put.

The kid shoved his phone in his pocket and walked quickly towards Sam, crossing the street, holding his hand out. “Hey, wait a miunute!” Jimmy called, eyes wide. 

It was that image that would stick in Sam’s mind forever, accompanied by an incredibly loud noise as a bus struck Jimmy Fancher and obliterated him. 

The bus screeched to a halt, tires stuttering. Sam just stared at the spot Jimmy had been, gulping to keep the urge to vomit at bay. He felt warmth through his shirt, and wetness on his face. 

Sam could smell the contents of Jimmy’s broken tequila bottle cutting through the earthy odor of blood. He sat down on the curb abruptly, and gave in to the shivers. Jimmy Fancher was no more. 


	5. The Passenger

The police station wasn’t exactly an uproar, but it was as close as this small town probably ever came to it. The bus accident had somehow already become big news, and in the ten minutes that it had taken for Sam to change his clothes from the ones soaked in Jimmy’s blood, a lot of civilians and reporters had arrived, all looking expectantly at any authority figure they could see. 

Sam showed the same woman at the front desk his badge and she buzzed him past the glass door into the offices of the station. Her expression seemed pinched. 

“Sorry about all the commotion, Mandy.” 

She nodded and turned her eyes back to the blinking lights of the phone. “I’m getting calls from national news, Agent Bonham.” 

Sam was fairly sure he still had flecks of blood on his socks. “Well, I’m sure you’re more than capable of handling it.” He winked at her for good measure and slipped past as quickly as possible. 

He didn’t think they’d suspect that he had anything to do with it, not if he showed up so quickly after Jimmy was struck by the bus. 

“Agent Bonham,” Sheriff Patterson addressed Sam, looking strangely cool for the frantic environment set by the constant ringing of phones. He sipped a cup of coffee. “I guess you heard.” 

“That Fancher was hit by a vehicle and killed? Yes.” 

“That’s one way of putting it, kid looked like a watermelon at a Gallagher show.” 

Sam gulped, trying with all his might to not visualize that. Again. “Right. What’s the situation?” 

“Well we don’t think we can hold the driver responsible, I’ve seen the dash footage.” 

Sam’s heart stuttered. “Yeah?” 

“He stepped right into traffic and nearly sprinted across the road. Never looked right. Never saw it coming.” He sipped his coffee.

“Well that’s… kind of fortunate, I guess.” 

“Must have been dang near instantaneous. But there goes our only lead.” The sheriff sighed into his coffee. “The big trick will be waiting for this to blow over.”

“You’re thinking the press won’t leave it alone?”

“Well, not for a week or so, and then there will be a follow-up in a month, and then the whole country will forget about us again, and things will be normal.” 

Sam nodded. “Sounds about right.” It made sense that the Police would be welcome to be shut of this case, the run of bad luck was phenomenal, but there was no murder weapon, and besides the money from the lottery wins, no known motive. To the cops, this wasn’t even a case. If nobody had committed a murder, there wasn’t a crime. 

“So I assume you’ll be on your way then.” The Sheriff stated. 

Sometimes it was frightening how easy it was to come up with a lie on the spot. “I’m waiting to hear back about the financial investigation with the parties involved, but that shouldn’t take more than a couple of days, sir.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see someone being pulled in through the front door in handcuffs, and Sam turned to look. 

Gadreel had his head down, and his nose was steadily dripping blood onto his gray sweatshirt. The officer was pulling him towards the booking desk. 

“Something the matter?” Patterson asked Sam, picking up on his bewilderment. 

Sam had to work with already having let the cat out of the bag a bit, and tried to put his poker face back on. “I… uh… I know that guy.”

“The patrolman? Or—”

“No, the guy in cuffs. I think I served with him.”

“You’re a vet?” The Sheriff blinked at him.

Sam could tell he was buying it. “Yeah, Marines. Can I talk with him?”

He stood “Hey Officer Vicks, both of you come over here.”

Gadreel looked up and recognized Sam, but his eyes looked confused, and frightened. Sam’s stomach dropped, he’d have to be careful. He’d never seen him look downright scared.

“Hey, it’s Zeke, isn’t it? We served together in Afghanistan.”

“We did?” Gadreel looked at him blankly, then the situation seemed to dawn on him and he looked at the police standing around him. “I have trouble remembering… Afghanistan.”

“Yeah, I was in the 5th regiment and I think you were in the EOD.” he gave them all a moment to react, and watched Danny become uncomfortable with the fact that he had a veteran handcuffed. Sam explained the initials to Paterson, “EOD is Explosive Ordnance Disposal.”

The sheriff blinked and nodded.

“I have a lot of problems remembering. It's difficult." Gadreel gulped and looked towards the floor. If he was acting in the slightest, he was doing a damn good job of it. 

Sam looked directly at the officer who'd brought him in. "Why is he being detained?"

"Resisting arrest," the officer nearly mumbled under the weight of their scrutiny. "And trespassing."

Sam almost scoffed. "When's he going in front of the judge?"

The sheriff cleared his throat. "He's not. Let him go."

Officer Vicks clenched his jaw and obeyed, keys jangling as he uncuffed Gadreel. 

"Thank you, Sheriff,” Sam touched Gadreel’s elbow to draw him closer, thankfully he didn’t flinch. “I’ll check in with the VA and see if they’ve got him in the system locally.”

The sheriff nodded and turned to talk to his officer, and Sam took the initiative to leave. Thankfully, Gadreel followed. 

Outside the station, he motioned to the car, and watched some uncertainty cross Gadreel’s face, before he ultimately decided to get into the passenger seat of the pontiac. 

They drove to the Lakeside Motel as the light of sunset faded from the sky, and found the Impala parked in the lot. Dean was talking on the phone and looked into the headlights of the car. Sam sighed as he parked the car next to it, and murmured “guess we ought to get the introductions over with.”

“Introductions?” 

“My Brother. He’s alright.” Sam got out off the car and sighed. Dean hung up and was staring at Gadreel in the front seat of the car, like he doubted what he was seeing. 

“What the hell, Sam?”

“Don’t…” he put his hands up, trying to placate him. “don’t be hostile, Dean. He doesn’t remember anything. He’s human.” 

Gadreel got out of the car, unfolding slowly, wiping his nose again even though the blood had dried and it wasn’t dripping. 

Guilt on Dean’s face slowly replaced his initial shock and anger. “Holy shit. How?”

Sam shrugged. “We don’t know. We still don’t know how Cas did it.”

“Who punched him?” Dean asked, eyebrow raised.

Before Sam could supply an answer, Gadreel spoke. “A police officer, I tried to interfere with his duty.” 

Dean smirked. “Still pretty formal.”

Sam sighed. “Yeah. Listen, can you get a second room?”

His brother’s head tilt was enough to voice his suspicions. “Well alright, That makes sense, nobody sleeps on the floor.” 

Sam fished out his keys and nodded to Gadreel. “We’re room four.” Dean sauntered off towards the motel office. Sam was standing with the keys in his hand and watched as Gadreel kind of slumped when Dean left. Like he was exhausted, and fading fast. 

“Let’s get inside, you can shower and rest,” Sam offered. “I brought a spare toothbrush, but you’ll have to use my razor— if you want it.” He went to the door and was almost surprised when Gadreel followed him. The look on his face was brimming with trepidation. 

Sam wanted to reassure him, and put his hand on his elbow after he unlocked the door. But that would be sentimental, and trivial, and he tried not to fall into that pit unless he was wanted. And that was seldom. 

The room wasn’t threatening. It was just strangely taupe, with periwinkle and mauve accents on the wallpaper. Stuck somewhere in the mid-90’s with the facelift of fresh carpet and bedding. He hoped that the chalk wards on the doors and walls weren’t too weird to him.

“I’ll just… wait here. Go on.” Sam sat down at the tiny table where his laptop rested, closed. 

Gadreel squinted at him so briefly that he thought he might have imagined it, and then stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. 

[Art by Anyrei](https://anyreiart.tumblr.com/post/186672105821/art-for-spn-canon-bang-story-by-burningwicker-art)

Sam let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and let his thoughts wander as he opened his laptop. His email box had a few things to read, none of them important, none of them meriting an immediate response. He looked up the real estate lady on the card— her name was Lorraine Lawson, and she had a lot of listings.

Gadreel emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, looking at Sam with obvious uncertainty. The angel had shaved his face and there were multiple nicks around his chin, but none were actively bleeding. His left eye looked a little purple beneath the lid, a souvenir from his arrest. 

Sam was staring. He blinked and stood up. “Hey, okay, here’s some pajamas.” He scooped up one of his own sweatpants and a t-shirt for him. 

Gadreel took the clothes from Sam’s outstretched hand, and immediately used them to cover the scar in the center of his chest. It was definitely an Enochian sigil, even the twisted healing of the skin couldn't hide that. But Sam couldn’t read it, and had never seen it before, not even when Dean had tortured Gadreel and almost killed him. 

“When did you get that scar?” Sam gestured, trying to seem casual about his curiosity.

“I don’t remember,” he replied flatly.

“Do you know what it says?” 

Gadreel looked down, and shook his head. “I think it probably means that somebody didn’t want me to be alive.” He went back into the bathroom, as that comment hollowed out the entire pretense of conversation. 

Sam sat down on the bed and sighed. He had no idea what he was doing, but at least Gadreel was going to be relatively safe near him— at least a little safer than he’d be on the street, or in Jail. He wasn’t sure why his intentions felt so scrambled. Why was this scenario feeling so strangely sexual? Was Sam really that deprived of intimacy that he’d project his desires onto a vulnerable person just because they  _ might _ be receptive?

_ Yes, _ he admitted to himself. He probably was. The image of Gadreel shirtless would stay with him for a while. But so would the guilt he felt at even thinking of him in that way; the guy was at his most vulnerable, and understandably guarded about Sam and Dean. 

He worried a little bit that picking Gadreel up meant that the guy would end up dead again, and this time it would be very clearly and deliberately on Sam. 

Gabriel’s haunting, as he was now referring to it, was still bothering him. He didn’t like how it made him feel like his own experiences weren’t reliable, how he’d lived so many years out of time and then been slapped back home like nothing happened. 

And well, Gabriel’s meddling was almost friendly and whimsical, compared to his century in the cage. Which he didn’t think about. Ever. 

Gadreel emerged again from the bathroom, and went to the bed on the right of Sam, where he sat down and slowly laid sideways. 

“You seem tired,” Sam observed. 

On the other side of the far wall, where Dean’s room was, he could hear the TV start to blare. His brother was trying to drown them out.

Gadreel nodded a little. “Yes. Can I sleep? Are you going to do anything?”

“Well I might get on the laptop an—” it suddenly hit Sam that what Gadreel meant was  _ “Are you going to touch me while I sleep?” _ and his brain stuttered. “Nevermind. We should rest. I won’t bother you.”

“Thank you,” Gadreel closed his eyes as though he was turning off a switch. Sam would have laughed if it was anyone else, but instead, he kept his clothes on, turned off the lights, and laid all the way back on his pillow. The bed was just barely big enough to lay down with Gadreel without touching, and he made his breathing slow and even, folding his arms over his stomach. 

He hoped for dreamless sleep.


	6. Suburbs

Dean’s driving was always adept and precise, but no matter what, the Impala stood out in any situation that wasn’t a straight, isolated road where it could do at least seventy miles an hour. The growls the engine made were discontented, and out of place in the neighborhood.

They pulled up outside the house that Sam had pretended to want to buy, where the twins had grown up. The street was empty of people but had a few cars parked; a suburban area like this was so sparsely populated during the day that they probably wouldn’t be seen or noticed. 

Dean looked back at Gadreel behind Sam, and then squinted at his brother like he was trying to communicate his thoughts. 

“What?” Sam squinted. “I can’t hear you.” 

“Nothing. Let’s go in.” 

Sam got out of the car and adjusted his holster. Dean did the same, and headed to the side of the house after glancing down the street in a manner that looked guilty as hell. Gadreel followed, and Sam walked after him with his phone in hand just in case he had to pretend to be calling the agent he’d met yesterday. 

Instead, as Dean popped out the rear window at the kitchen door and unlocked the deadbolt, Sam did a quick search of the web for the agent’s name. Lorraine Lawson. He skipped her listings.

Just as he was finding a third news article about how she’d been accused of maneuvering the city planning commission into allowing her to negotiate a deal with Macy’s on a major spot for new construction, Dean grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him inside. 

Gadreel was standing a few feet away, looking nervous and guilty. 

“Hey,” Dean said to the angel, picking up instantly on his trepidation, “We’re investigating this house. We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

“But we’re sneaking,” Gadreel looked from Dean to Sam and then back again. “It doesn’t feel right.” 

“Gadreel, trust me on this. The evidence we want, it’s… going to make sure some bad people get caught,” Dean held up his hands defensively. 

Gadreel’s face told Sam so much that he almost started laughing. “Okay. Gadreel, we’re pretending to be FBI agents. If we get caught, you are absolutely not responsible. You can tell them that we promised you money.” 

The angel clenched his jaw. “Okay,” he gritted out. 

Sam looked at Dean. “This place has been staged to be sold. All their stuff is gone.”

“Yeah, well, what lotto winner wants to be in this shithole?” Dean smirked. “Let’s check the upstairs and the basement.” 

“Basement first,” Sam declared. “The ad says it’s not fully furnished.” 

“Okay.” Dean drew his gun and led their expedition downstairs— the stairs were easily found beside the kitchen pantry, and were slim, walled with brick on one side. 

Nothing was there. Only the shelves of the empty root cellar, rings of long-ago canned fruits and vegetables burned into the shelves on the surrounding walls, and a washer and dryer that looked more than ten years old. 

The upstairs was jarringly empty. Only a towel, hung on a doorknob to the master bath. 

“Cleaned out,” Dean declared. 

Sam looked into the vast backyard, and saw the spot where the car should have been— a dusty rectangle of dead grass and the drag marks of the tow truck that got it out of the lot. “She moved the car. It was there when I came by.” 

“Real estate agent was weird, wasn’t she?” Dean chuckled. 

“Seemed desperate, got a little spooked when I mentioned the dead twins.” 

Gadreel didn’t ask questions, he just blinked critically at Sam. 

Dean touched the handle of his gun, squinted at the house, and smirked. “A real Poltergeist situation, huh? I bet she’s our Ebay seller.”

“I thought that it was Jimmy, but he just got hit by a bus.” Sam replied.

Gadreel was just quiet, watching them both.

“Let’s look her up,” Sam suggested, pulling her card from his pocket. “Think she’s in?” 

“It’s Tuesday.” He shrugged. “She should be.”

Chills ran down Sam’s spine. He’d almost expected Dean to say  _ “pig in a poke.”  _ As they left the house, Sam impulsively looked in the fridge. Nothing but a musty smell and unfrozen otter pops.


	7. Hide and Seek

The office was in what looked like an old bank, renovated to make room for cubicles and small sitting areas where real estate agents could work with clients. There were a couple of people in the large room, and they found Lorraine’s office in the back. The hair on the back of Sam’s neck stood up as they walked in, but Lorraine was sitting there with her glasses on, focused on her computer screen. 

“Hello gentlemen, I’ll be with you in a second.” Lorraine smiled pleasantly and blinked at Sam. “Oh, you’re back. Have a seat,” she gestured to the two spots in front of her desk, indicating that Sam should take the left. There weren’t enough seats for all three of them so Gadreel stood back and put his hands in his pockets. 

Sam sat down and immediately felt glued there. Tried to move his foot, lift his hand— nothing. Paralysis.

He gulped and looked to Dean, who either didn’t notice, or was trying to keep a poker face.

“I met Sam yesterday at the house at…” she squinted at her monitor, “226 Galveston,” she explained, smiling to Dean. She completely ignored Gadreel, who stood behind Dean and fidgeted.

Sam was dead certain that he’d never told her his name, or even an alias. The pit of dread in his stomach was growing. 

Lorraine closed her laptop with a soft snap and slid it into a large messenger bag stuffed with files. “Well it’s a lovely surprise to see you, Sam. Are you and your…” she paused, weighing the next words with a knowing smirk— “family getting serious about the house?”

Dean turned his head and looked straight at Sam, leaning forward in the chair. Maybe he picked up on something amiss. “Yeah,” Dean smirked, “we wanted to know why you seem to have such a motivated seller.” 

“The rest of the family has left town. Sam, is this your brother?” 

He managed to make a strangled sound in the back of his throat— it took everything that Sam had to force the sound. His fingers curled, too. 

Dean’s hand went to his gun so fast that Lorraine stood up like a jack-in-the-box, and her hand went to the edge of the desk to steady herself. She squinted at Gadreel. “What the hell is that?” 

Sam managed to make another sound, or at least he thought he did. He could hear his brother talking, but it was far away and indistinct. He wanted to reassure Dean that he was fine, that his heart was still beating, floating just beneath his skin. 

His vision was tunneling, and he was sinking down into the pit. 

Time melted. It was as though every moment of Sam’s life was spun out at once. He was in the kitchenette of a roadside motel, he was a child, running through the woods with Dean, he was begging Lucifer in hell, he was holding Jess as they danced slow. 

The hundreds of years of hell compressed, every pain burning bright and sharp as if happening in the same moment. 

* * *

The shock of being pulled out off it was like being dipped in a fast-moving river. Sam sucked in air and  _ sobbed  _ with relief. 

He was on the floor, his chair kicked over nearby. Gadreel looked down at him. “Dean went with her… He said she was a witch?”

His brain was still scrambling to make sense of where he was. Sam wiped his face; his eyes had been leaking. “I’m sorry,” he apologized inexplicably. “I’m sorry.” He looked at the overturned chair and saw red paint on the underside. He hoped it was paint, anyway. Definitely a witches’ trap.

“She took your brother.” Gadreel looked as though his discomfort was warring with his sense of righteousness and propriety. “It was… I saw that you were unable to move.”

Sam slowly sat up. His brother was  _ taken.  _ “She… took him where?”

“She said to the pit. I don’t know where that is.” said Gadreel, helpfully.

Sam inhaled deeply. “She saw something when she looked at you.” 

Gadreel nodded. “It hurt her eyes to look at me. And she told Dean to leave in the Sheriff's car.” 

“What? Sheriff Patterson’s car?” 

“Yes, he was with her. I thought I mentioned that.”

“Oh no. We have to go.” Sam scrambled off the floor. He still felt his skin crawling, and his equilibrium was a little tilted, but he had his gun in his waistband. 

Gadreel put his hand on his elbow. “Are you okay?” 

“No,” Sam shook his head. “But there’s no time.”

He left the little office/vault and stumbled through the lobby, barely registering that there were multiple employees on the phone, staring at them both.

Gadreel was close behind and shoved the door shut behind them. “I don’t know where they took Dean. Perhaps to the jail?”

“I doubt it.” Sam clenched his jaw. “Too much accountability for what they’ll do to him. And she said the pit.” 

“Which is?”

“The Chandlers were digging things somewhere, so I bet that’s it. They’ll kill him. If we’re lucky, they’ll torture him first.”

“That doesn’t sound lucky.” 

“It buys him time.” Sam’s voice was tight. He pulled his spare key out from his wallet and unlocked the Impala. 

“Can you drive?” 

“Please don’t ask me that.” Sam started the car, and idled as Gadreel got in. He gulped. “Where, though. The house?” he asked rhetorically, and shook his head. “That’s too obvious.” 

Gadreel was looking at the former bank, where people were standing at the front windows, on their cell phones. “We should leave. Drive to somewhere we won’t be seen.”

Sam sighed and popped into gear, and pulled out with a slight fishtail as he spun the wheel back into town. 

Gabriel, in the back of his head, was astride a missile, waving a cowboy hat as he rode forth into the apocalypse.

He ignored him and drove. “We need to find the pit.”

“Where do we go?” 

He took a deep breath through his nose, still processing the hundreds of years compressed into a few moments of being incapacitated. “Where’s the new construction in town? The bigger the better.”

“What?” 

“There was an article that mentioned her and an investigation about a new strip mall or a Macy’s…”

Gadreel blinked. “There’s a new warehouse being constructed west of here in a field, you can see it from the creek where I used to camp.”

“Good place to start.” Sam floored the gas pedal, watching Gadreel slump back into the seat. His basest urges were slightly preoccupied with how the rumble of the engine shook up his spine, kept the angel next to him pinned into his seat. 

The sun was setting as he pointed the car west, nearly blinding him. And then he saw Aesop’s. He brought the car to a shrieking halt, parking clumsily on the curb, cringing as he thought of Dean’s reaction to a dented rim. 

Wind was tossing leaves and other detritus across the street, and his hair flipped around his head as he got out of the car. 

“Sam.” Gadreel was frowning slightly. “We’re not there yet. What’s wrong?” 

Sam looked directly at Aesop’s, which was getting a fresh coat of paint, and a new neon sign, which said, absurdly,  _ “Good ol’ Gabe’s.” _ He remembered, with a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, that the discussion between Tabitha and Jimmy had mentioned their boss being named  _ Gabe. _ As in  _ Gabriel. _ It couldn’t be.

If Sam ever saw Chuck again, he’d have to refrain from slapping him.

“You see it too?” He asked, pulling the gun out of his waistband and checking that it was loaded. He chambered a round. 

Gadreel nodded and clenched his jaw. 

“Stay behind me. I just have to check one thing, but this could get dangerous.” 

The angel complied, and they walked in. The bell chimed twice as the door shut behind Gadreel. 

“Sam, sweetheart! I’m glad you came. Cranberry vodka? And how about your friend?” 

Gadreel made a weird noise in his throat and put his hands up to his ears, trying to block a train whistle that only he could hear. 

“Oh wow.” Gabe said. “That’s a problem.” He snapped his fingers and Gadreel dropped to the floor like a rag doll. 

Sam spun on his heel and leveled the gun at Gabriel. The archangel squinted at him and rolled his eyes. “That isn’t going to do anything to me, Sam.” 

“You’re real.” 

He held a finger up. “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Isn’t it obvious? I was  _ hiding. _ ”

Sam considered his gun and slowly holstered it. “From who? Heaven doesn’t have any archangels left.”

Gabriel shrugged and smiled. “From you.” 


	8. The Rube

Sam watched the rise and fall of Gadreel’s chest as he lay on the floor, cursing the way his eyes wanted to linger on the tendons of the angel’s neck. The expression on his face was relaxed, and he looked like he was sleeping. Sam had to sit down. Hesitantly, he sank into a chair in the middle of the bar; still a dozen feet away from Gabriel. He needed space. After a handful of seconds, he spoke. “How are you alive? I need your help. They have Dean.”

Gabe was looking at Gadreel too, and smirked knowingly. “Oh. I got out. Parallel universes? Faking my death? Pretty cool. The trick was getting out before it sealed off. Kinda proud of that one.” 

“How did you end up here?” 

Gabriel rolled his head on his shoulders. “It glowed brightly, and it wasn’t far. And I saw him,” he pointed to the angel on the floor. “And it almost made sense.” 

“Did you know about the witch?” 

He scoffed. “A witch? I don’t care. Or about the crossroads demon. You know, I can almost feel it,— I think this place is catching a lot of weird flotsam. They tend to hang around, make a career of it.” He looked at Gadreel and shrugged.

Sam blinked, and almost asked about the demon. But it wasn’t relevant, considering. “They’ve got Dean, and they’ll probably kill him. We need to get to the new construction west of town, and I don’t have time to play any games.” 

Gabriel blew out a little air. “Nah. I’ve uh… stopped time. For you, anyways.” He moved behind the bar and pulled a maraschino cherry from a garnish dish, then poured himself a glass of tequila and blue syrup. “Sammy, do you need a drink?”

“No.” He said it a little too forcefully, and shook his head. “I don’t have any leverage to get you to do it, I’m begging here. Just get me there right now.”

“Sammy. Sam. I can’t find Dean. Y’all both have a blessing in your bones.”

“What?” 

He rolled his eyes. “Some asshole put enochian on your ribs. You’re practically invisible.”

“Oh. That was Cas. Years ago. Shit, I forgot.” Sam put his hand to his side. “Angels can’t find us. But you were in my dream.”

“That’s what I said,” he mumbled into his drink, and seemed to savor the flavor before swallowing. “If you’re close, and you  _ were, _ I can find you.”

“What can you do, then?” 

“Wrong question. What  _ will  _ I do? Not much. But I’m intrigued by your rube there, on the floor.” 

They both looked at Gadreel. “He isn’t a rube,” Sam said defensively.

“I don’t mean that you’ve used him like one. I mean it’s in his design. Without his legendary cock-up, there’d hardly be a point to heaven or hell, would there? His lines were written by our creator just as surely as yours were. But you tried to buck that programming. He can’t.” 

Sam had to nod in affirmation, although it almost hurt to do so. He didn’t like the feeling that Chuck was just playing with all of them. He looked at Gadreel, feeling guilty about dragging him into this proverbial lion’s den. “Yeah. I just… we owe him. He tried.” 

“I tried too. But I learn quickly.” 

“Gabriel, we… didn’t mean for you to have to die.” 

“I _ didn’t. _ But of course you wouldn’t mean it, that would be _ murder. _ You just put a person in a bad place, and then let them stay there while something else does the dirty work.” His facial expressions often crossed from gravely serious to bright-eyed mischievous, sometimes with a flash of malice in between. 

Sam sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Do whatever it takes to keep everyone alive.”

Feeling incredibly melancholy, Sam wiped his hand over his eyes and watched Gabriel drink. “What do I need to do?”

“You’re going to have to close this case. And you don’t have a lot of time to do it in, once you get out there.” 

Sam gulped. “But you’ll help, because you remember what happened the last time my brother died and you wouldn’t help.”

Gabriel frowned. “Hmn. Sure I can’t erntice you into wasting a half a day watching battlebots reruns and drinking old fashioneds? I mean, I can control time. I can even make him remember who he is.” 

The implication was slightly threatening. If Gadreel remembered everything leading up to this moment, would he leave? Rejoin the angels? Or seek revenge for getting him killed in the first place? Sam glared at Gabriel. “You’re going to do what you want to do. And so am I.”

“There’s the hard-boiled Sam I remember.”

The snap to black-and-white was fast— all the color bled from the lights above the bar, the tile of the floor changed to a bold checkerboard, and Sam felt the difference in his clothing instantly. Even more startling was the hat on his head, at a slight downward angle. There was a tumbler of liquor on the table to his right, and as he looked, the ice in it shifted. 

“God damn you, Gabriel,” Sam muttered and looked around for the archangel. He stood up and checked the gun in his waistband- it was still there, but it was a .38 special instead of his usual beretta, and a brand new gun that felt like the colt hanging under his arm in a shoulder holster that his jacket concealed. 

Sam realized he wasn’t alone when Gadreel groaned from the floor and rolled over slowly. The angel’s hair was combed neatly and parted on the side- he would have looked like a huge nerd, if the world hadn’t been twisted into a gaunt, hard-edged parody of the mid-forties. 

There was grit in the texture of the deep shadows, he realized. Everything around him was exactly like a Humphrey Bogart movie, down to the film’s tinny sound. 

“Okay.” Sam said, taking a deep breath. “We’re being messed with. Gadreel, are you okay?” 

“My clothes are different.” He stood up hesitantly, looking at his suspenders and pleated slacks. 

“Me too.” Sam removed his hat, and felt his hair. It was pulled back, bound in a tight ponytail at the base of his skull. At least Gabriel hadn’t cut his hair. 

“What happened?” 

Sam didn’t think he could adequately explain everything to Gadreel, but he did owe him a little explanation. “An archangel named Gabriel. He… he’s toying with us.”

“What does he want?” 

Sam didn’t really have an answer for that one. He shook his head. “We should concentrate on finding the pit.” 

“Did he tell you where it was? Is it the same one you thought?” Gadreel asked, studying the way the suspenders buttoned onto his pants. 

Sam was slightly preoccupied by the way he looked as he picked at the elastic weave. “He didn’t say. He did talk about not having much time, though. But this—” he gestured to the room around them— “is just a distraction, because Gabe’s not on our side.”

“But he’s an angel.” 

“He plays for his own team.” Sam frowned at the vacant bar. 

“When will this end?” Gadreel was looking at his hands, distressed. He probably wasn’t used to having his world turned upside down every week. 

Sam sighed. “I’m sorry. This is… not forever. I’m not sure how long, but Gabriel will get tired of it eventually.” 

The angel clenched his jaw and nodded. 

They walked outside, the color was still drained from the world, and the Impala parked up on the curb was now an early 40’s Chevrolet, which fit the aesthetic of all of the movies on TCM that Gabriel had clearly been watching. 

The moon was huge and fake-looking, and the mist rolling through the street obscured the buildings far away. “Oh this is big,” Sam muttered. He’d half-believed that Gabriel had only had the chutzpah to bother with their clothes, or the car, but this looked like the whole  _ town. _ The illusion was all-encompassing, would follow them wherever they went.

“What do we do?” Gadreel said. 

Sam pulled the car keys out of his pocket. “We drive.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The marks mentioned on Sam and Dean's ribs were put there by Castiel way back at the beginning of season 5. Wow I'm old.


	9. Noir

The road was paved with midnight, and it began to rain. Sam kept his hands on the wheel, teeth clenched tight enough to creak, as the car splashed through puddles and growled onward. 

The dame had his brother, and that crooked cop had been working with her from the beginning. He had to wonder if Patterson had been the one that did the hit on Carl, dumping him in the river like it was just clumsy fate that did the deed. 

The angel beside him had one hand on the dashboard, and had neglected to fasten his seatbelt. “Sam,” he gulped, adam’s apple bobbing, a gloss of sweat under his neck, almost hidden by the starched collar. “What do we do when we get there?” 

“Gabe knows. He always knows.” 

“The Archangel Gabriel isn’t driving the car, Sam.” He sounded concerned, like he could tell that Sam had cracked. 

Sam laughed dryly. “I’m going to do whatever it takes. We put a bullet in her head, we save Dean, this stops. Would you put this much effort into this much… goddamn shenanigans if you were just gonna bottle us?” He could feel his vocabulary shifting, and that spooked him. He wasn’t thinking like himself, he felt hungover, his stubble was alarmingly rough, and he felt strange without his hat on. If there was one thing he hated, it was having his mind bent. 

“Please slow down,” Gadreel pleaded. 

The edge in his voice cut him. He had to try to think like his usual self, and get out of the melancholy jazz and cigarette fog. Sam took his foot off the gas and coasted to a stop in the gravel beside the boulevard. He took a few deep breaths and struggled to let go of the wheel. “Sorry. I’m all spun up, Gad.” 

“I can tell. You’re angry. They’ve got Dean, no telling what they’ll do.” The angel finally found the handle above the door to hang on to. “But you can’t be reckless.” 

“There aren’t any cards for us to play.” He took a deep breath. All of his words were delivered like they were fired out of a tommy gun. “The board is his. He’s got us in a corner—”

“Sam. Are you okay?” 

Sam closed his eyes and took a handful of deep breaths. 

And Gadreel slid his hand over and put his palm on his thigh. Sam stopped breathing and gulped, but the radio turning on sent a cold shudder through him and he pulled the angel’s hand off his leg and slowly pushed it back to Gadreel.

Neither of them had touched the dial. Jack Purvis was playing. 

“I’m sorry,” Gadreel said. “It just seemed like the thing to do.” 

“He’s got us both acting all squirrelly.” 

“What do we do, Sam?” 

Sam pointed the car into a cornfield and pulled the gun out of the holster under his arm. “We force his hand.” 

Gadreel looked as though he was dreading whatever Sam had in mind.

“Can’t be controlled, Gabe,” he muttered. He handed the gun to Gadreel. “Use this if you have to.”

“I’ve never fired a gun,” he said. 

“Point it at what you want to hit, and pull the trigger. Not the other way around.” 

Gadreel kept the gun in his hand but lowered it to his thigh. He looked at the bleak darkness outside the car. “If this world is something he made, then he might as well be God. Fickle and merciless as the old testament.” 

Sam floored it through the corn, knowing he was headed west— for the sake of the story Gabe was spinning for them, he  _ had _ to be. Endless stalks appeared in their headlights before being plowed brutally under the wheels. The Chevy’s shocks groaned as they rode over the rows, and when the crop finally parted, he could see some steel beams sticking upright, a few trucks, and a pit. 

There were spotlights pointed into the hole. Sam noticed immediately that a generator was running, and the bulb of the giant cement mixer truck was turning.

“Found it.” Sam put the car into park and cut the engine. “I’m going in first, you sneak in and look for Dean.” He opened the door and went for the trunk, loading his .38 with the witch killing bullets he found in the kit. It was a little different— there was a bottle of very expensive bourbon nested next to the shotgun, like it belonged. 

He squinted at it and uncorked it for a quick sip. It burned hot in his throat. Everything was quite real, an illusion on top of things which could still hurt him. The stakes were still there, they had just been drained of color. Sam pulled up a machete and closed the trunk, walking around to the front of the car. Gadreel was crouching, and when sam pointed to the running trucks, he nodded and snuck around to the right, skirting the perimeter of the job site.

Sam Winchester walked forward, jacket unbuttoned, hat on his head tilted forward, machete in one hand and gun in the other. A gust of wind blew dust across his path, blazing white fog through the beams of light that lit the construction area. He went to the edge, and saw Lorraine and Sheriff Patterson in the hole. Patterson was next to a huge cistern, using a wrench to tighten a bolt on the top of it. There were symbols painted on the side of it, glistening with still-wet paint.

“Where’s Dean?” Sam pointed the gun down at them. 

The Sheriff dropped the wrench and went for his sidearm. 

Sam shot him twice, the first hitting his chest and the second landing through his neck. Patterson dropped like a mannequin off the side of the cistern, sliding out of sight. The witch screamed.

“Gus! No!” Lorraine was in black, a pillbox hat on her head, wrapped in a black veil over her eyes. She gestured to the cement truck and the ramp dropped. 

Her next gesture froze the breath in Sam’s throat. She rose out of the pit, hovering, and before he could level the gun at her head, she sent him flying backwards. Sam’s head spun; his hands were empty and his lims full of lead. He could taste blood— his teeth had cut the inside of his cheek. 

“What have you done?!” She gestured with her other hand, and he was pulled upright. Sam grunted. “ _ TALK. _ ” 

She was worse than that redhead dame, Rowena. Sam had to say something, it was like he was in a vise. “I shot the Sheriff.” He laughed, knowing his teeth were darkened by the blood in his mouth. “Where’s my brother?” 

“What have you done to the world? What are you?” 

“I didn’t do it,” he croaked, struggling to keep breathing while she had him pinned like a bug under glass.

“Nonsense, you killed my boys.” 

Sam blinked in confusion. He heard clanging from the pit. Sam glanced over and saw the cement filling the hole, and had a sudden realization. “He’s in the can!” he shouted, hoping Gadreel would hear.

“And his ghost will protect this place  _ forever. _ ” She hissed through her teeth. “Keep the others  _ out,” _ she hissed. 

“This is a burial ground, isn’t it?”

“And soon it will be yours,” she promised, beaming. “Your ghosts will both be locked here, and whatever spellcraft you’ve put on my eyes will be gone. This black and white nonsense. How quaint!”

Sam tried to keep his eyes away from the pit but he saw Gadreel sliding down into it and gulped. He had to keep her distracted. “I thought you killed the twins. That’s my whole reason for coming down to this burg.” 

“Nonsense, I needed them.”

“They were leaving,” Sam growled.

“Oh, like digging up old rotten skeletons was making me a ton of money. It’s only ever been about the land. If the crews don’t find the burials, construction keeps going and I make money faster. Gus was helping me to keep this town alive, Sam. Otherwise we’d be just another ghost town in the rust belt.” 

Sam tried to move— no luck. He could hear more banging from in the pit. It was starting to get muffled, like the cement coming up around the cistern was getting high and deadening the noise. How much cement did the mixing truck hold? He tried to do the math in his head for volume and decided that it was definitely enough to fill the pit and bury Dean forever.

A howl cut through the night and Lorraine’s head turned towards it. “No, not yet,” she hissed. “I need more  _ time.”  _

Her attention was pulled away, and Sam felt a sudden lightness with the lifting of her concentration. He thought he knew what that howling sound meant. Hellhounds. 

Sam scrambled for the edge of the pit, and was thrown through the air again as the witch realized he was making a break for it. He was just able to see Gadreel on top of the huge can, prying at the bolts with his fingers as Sam sailed through the air and landed against an upright beam. He was sure he’d broken a rib, and something inside of him was simply on fire. He couldn’t move. 

This time, she clenched her fist in the air, croaked out a spell at him that he couldn’t be bothered to decipher, and threw her head back to spit at the moon. Then she looked down at Gadreel in the pit. “You!” Lorraine covered her eyes. “What kind of creature are you!”

Gadreel scrambled on top of the cistern, covered in concrete. “I’m an angel, ma’m.” He leveled his gun at her— and in the light of the muzzle flash, Sam saw her gesture.

The impact hurt. Hot liquid ran down his back, and Sam mentally upgraded his tally of injuries to requiring a visit to a hospital. Gadreel turned to look at Sam in horror, as they both slowly realized that the bullet had been magically deflected to hit Sam. He wanted to fold like a cheap card table, but the spell keeping him pinned against the beam didn’t care.

Lorraine turned her full attention to the angel. Black liquid was beginning to ooze from her eyes, and it looked like a lot more than just running mascara. It was as though his angelic brilliance was burning her from the inside, as though the black ink of a demon deal was bulging out of her skin. She screamed a spell that resounded with a thunderclap and struck Gadreel. 

The angel crumpled and fell into the muck, finally deep enough to cover the cistern completely. 

The howling of the hellhound was quite near, and Sam was starting to have trouble keeping his eyes open. “You’re not going to win,” he croaked to the witch, and passed out. 


	10. Wings

Part of losing consciousness was the horrible sensation of an uncontrolled plunge, but this time what it became was a bright beautiful blue sky that he was falling through. He looked around and saw the curvature of the earth in startling detail, traversed with beautiful idyllic clouds and vaulted in brilliant streaks of fire— angels fell all around him, burning as they were expelled from heaven. 

Gadreel grabbed his hand and stopped his descent. “We will not fall.” 

He was snapped back to consciousness and it became immediately apparent that almost no time had passed at all. He was able to move again, but Gadreel was motionless in the pool of cement, and Lorraine was scratching quickly in the dirt with the tip of Sam’s machete. Everything was still in shades of gray.

His gunshot wound hurt; no time for triage. He pressed his left hand against his side and stumbled around the pit. Dean had an hour of air, give or take, considering the size of the tank. Gadreel had less time, if he could drown— but Sam had to take care of Lorraine first. 

He saw the steam of the hellhound’s breath in the beam of a lamp, and gulped, slowly bent to pick up his gun on the ground. Damn invisible dogs. The enormous paws danced around, leaving impressions the dirt. Lorraine stood stock still, blade in both hands and scrawl on the ground complete. 

“You made a deal with Crowley.” Sam wavered a little on his feet. 

She nodded, looking at the dog that only she could see. 

“Crowley’s dead, but his deals are still binding.” Sam growled. 

She nodded again, face gaunt. 

“Would you rather I kill you, or let the dog drag you to hell?” He leveled his gun at her. 

Her lips thinned to a tiny line. He tensed his finger on the trigger, having to take a careful moment to aim.

The pit behind him exploded in light. Sam saw a flash of pale blue color, and turned to look. Gadreel was glowing, the concrete around him boiled, and as Sam gaped, he lifted the giant cistern out of the pit and rolled it onto land. 

It was odd to see him beaming with color, as though the angel’s own personal reality was concentrated just around  _ him. _

Sam slowly lowered the gun to his side, and watched Gadreel tear the port on the top right off the thing, shrieking metal protesting all the while. 

Dean crawled out of the hole, and Sam smiled. 

The hellhound barked loudly behind him, then resumed growling lowly as it stalked the witch. 

Sam turned his attention back to the dame and swallowed. “Okay. Enough of this.” He shot the ground where she’d scrawled, tearing up a clump of dirt.

“Wait!” She cried. And then the dog _ lunged  _ at her. 

Her screams were worse than the howling. Dean stumbled over as quick as he could, took the gun from Sam’s numb fingers, and shot her in the back quickly and efficiently. She fell on the ground, dead, and the hellhound whined a little, dropped her body, sniffed it, and sauntered off into the darkness. 

Dean and Sam looked at each other, and then Dean seemed to notice the lack of color in his own hands, and then saw that he was in a suit where he hadn’t been before. “Sammy, what the hell is going on.” 

Sam held his side and shivered. “I think you better drive, Dean. My number’s up.” 

Dean looked at him, saw the dark spreading stain he was trying to keep under control with his hands, and turned pale. 

Sam was still standing, but looking at the car, which hadn’t changed back to the Impala. Could they be stuck like this, in Gabriel’s web forever? Or would it go away with the dawn? “It’s Gabriel. He did this.” 

“Sam, talk to me.”

He couldn’t. He was staring at Gadreel’s wings, radiant and shredded, desolate and incredible. The angel seemed to feel his eyes, and turned to Sam.

The problem with any color at all was that it seemed so violent, like leaving a dark theater to the bright midday sun. Gadreel was wearing the clothes Sam had offered him, just jeans, a t-shirt and a flannel, but each strike of color could have stolen his breath. 

Gadreel reached out and put his hands on Sam’s chest, and radiating warmth hit him. Color bled in from every corner— even the dark night was vibrant indigo. His clothes were fixed. His wounds were gone. He leaned on the angel, exhausted, and sighed. “Thank you” 

Gadreel was still glowing, wings fading in and out of the visible spectrum. Lorraine’s body was clad in her office clothes again, an ordinary pantsuit. The dog bites looked real enough. Sam tore his eyes away. Dean holstered the pistol and wiped some flecks of concrete from his hair. 

Sam asked Gadreel, gently, “Are you okay?” 

It was something of an oddity to see an angel, radiating with holy wrath, nod quickly like a scared child. Gadreel slowly faded back into being just himself, jeans and flannel hollow, hanging from his narrow frame. 

Sam gulped and reached for his arm, gently putting his palm there to steady him. “You remember.” 

Gadreel almost whispered. “Yes. I do.” 


	11. A Home to Hold You In

Leaving Jefferson City was not a hard decision. After all, Sam had killed an officer of the law, and even though he was beneath a dozen tons of concrete, Sam knew his luck could literally change at any second. It was only 4am, but people would be at the job site and discover what had occurred within a couple of hours. Dean drove the Impala back to Lakeside Motel and Sam went in to get the rest of his clothes and his laptop cable. 

When he came out of the room, Gadreel was standing to the side of the Impala, hands in his pockets. 

“Hey, what’s up?” 

“I can’t pay you for the clothes, but I’d like to keep them. They’re almost new.” 

Sam blinked. “What are you talking about?” 

“I will repay you for your clothing when I am able.” He said. 

“No, no. You don’t have to do that. Why aren’t you in the car?” 

“You’re leaving town.”

“Yes, and… you are too, right?” 

“I don’t know,” Gadreel said, eyes darting back and forth.

“Come with us. Please.” Sam could see the angel weighing his options, and added; “you need some time to get back on your feet.” 

Gadreel pursed his lips and nodded. Sam opened the rear door for him, watched him get in and settle with some trepidation in the back seat. “Okay. Dean, let’s get home.”

* * *

He dreamed about the road. In the dream, which was blissfully neutral, and for some reason not at all alarming, Gabriel was sitting in the back seat with Gadreel, hands folded in his lap. 

“Gabriel. Are you here?” 

“Are any of us really anywhere, Sam? Come on.” The archangel chuckled. “So you solved it.” 

“Did I?” 

“Insomuch as you Winchesters actually ever solve anything. The witch is dead, so are all of her helpers.” 

Sam rolled his head to look at Gabe fully. Dean was driving, but didn’t seem to hear or care who he was talking to. “The ones that we didn’t kill, who killed them?” 

Gabe snorted. “The Osage, the Missouria, and the Illini. That was their names, and that town was at the place where three tribes came together in a bend in the river. They were kind to travelers, always hospitable. And you know… sometimes I just see a pile of bones, not even a full skeleton left, and I remember— that’s Ka-segra. He was so old, and blind. I remember when his children buried him. Somebody sold his drinking cup to a buyer in Vermont. And I kind of lose my mind a little, Sam.” 

Sam gulped. “Oh.” 

“You solved it enough, So rest easy. I’m glad you’re taking the big oaf.”

“Are you staying in Jefferson City?” 

Gabriel looked out the window at the endless fields of the Kansas plains. “Never.” 

And Sam woke up as they slid into the driveway of the bunker. 

Dean yawned and parked the car. “Home sweet home. Have a good nap?” 

Sam gulped and nodded. “Yeah.”

* * *

There was a little pretense of showing Gadreel around the bunker, but when Sam stepped into the library with him, he couldn’t quite bring himself to point out the newer tomes they’d acquired, or the corner where Kevin had died.

The angel frowned slightly. “Sam. I regret deeply—” 

“It’s fine,” Sam interrupted, a tad more forceful than he meant. “I mean, if Dean and I can find a friend in Crowley, who did so much to us… I mean, he tortured, murdered…” Sam thought about his many crimes. “We’re fine. I mean, there’s a lot to navigate—”

Gadreel cut him off by kissing him on the corner of the mouth. It was sudden, and seemed impulsive, but also curiously chaste, as though he didn’t want to spook Sam.

Sam was a little stunned. He didn’t pull away, but he did freeze up. 

Gadreel pulled back and looked away. “I was on the street for more than two years, Sam. I don’t know exactly how much longer that would have gone on if not for you. And now that I have my own mind back, I… feel as though I owe you a great debt.” 

“You don’t owe me… you don’t owe me  _ that,  _ at least.” Sam could feel heat in his face. He knew he was red.

“I know,” the angel countered. “But perhaps I would like to give this to you.” 

Sam blinked and cleared his throat. “Ah, um.” 

Gadreel studied him and, when he didn’t say anything for a few minutes, turned to walk away, towards the kitchen. 

It wasn’t time for cowardice, to ruminate over what-ifs; if Sam was going to do anything, it had to be now, or else he’d never work up the courage again. 

He reached out, took Gadreel by the shoulder and turned him, pressing him up against the door frame. Sam kissed him on the lips abruptly, before he could lose his nerve. 

Gadreel’s soft gasp was oddly fulfilling. Sam leaned his whole body against the angel’s front and held him around the waist as he deepened the kiss, hoping that he wasn’t going too fast, fighting the adrenaline that made his fingers and knees tremble.

It had been way too long. Gadreel was pliant under him, the jut of his hipbone digging in against Sam’s groin. Sam dropped his hand to feel the line of his erection and moaned into his mouth when he found the length of it.

A soft, deliberate throat clearing interrupted them both. 

“Castiel,” said Gadreel, looking over Sam’s shoulder, not seeming one bit bothered by the debauched manner they’d been found in. Sam had to remind himself that things like shame and sin probably weren’t the first things on Gadreel’s mind.

“Gadreel. Sam.” Cas didn’t seem displeased, just vaguely astonished. 

“Cas, um… sorry.” Sam panted. 

Gadreel grabbed his hand before Sam could move it away from his groin and turned his attention back to Sam. “Your room?” 

Sam, blushing, nodded. “Yeah.” 

The sound of his wings was like a muffled thunderclap. Sam opened his eyes and swayed. He found his footing and let go of Gadreel to strip his shirt off. The angel’s attention never wavered, even as he slowly started to do the same. 

Sam locked the door to his room and took his shoes and jeans off, then stood next to the bed, contemplating Gadreel’s slow movements. He didn’t seem hesitant, but he was staring at Sam with something desperate in his eyes. 

“What is it?” Sam asked.

“I want you close. Nobody’s touched me like that in a long time.” 

“Like what?” Sam crawled onto the bed, and put his hand near the scar on Gadreel’s chest. 

“Like they cared.” 

Sam gulped and pulled him into an awkward hug. This seemed so impulsive, so alien for him, but also so  _ right _ . “I think we both need this.” 

The angel held onto him and nodded. Sam, for his part, tried to calm himself down— he shouldn’t feel like he was running from something, he shouldn’t be so desperate that he used his partner for a quick hook-up. He wasn’t built for momentary romance and he knew it. He pet Gadreel’s shoulders. The angel smiled at him reassuringly. “I won’t break, Sam. You don’t need to worry about me.” 

He laughed a little. “I’m not worried about breaking _ you. _ I’m worried this will be over in ten minutes.” 

“I think you mean five minutes.” Gadreel looked down the line of his body with a knowing smirk. 

“Two minutes or less.” Sam grinned back and shook his head. “Come on. Lay back.”

The angel slowly complied, propping himself up on Sam’s pillows, and watched with keen interest as Sam lowered his head to kiss down his body, nibbling his thigh and settling his head by his groin. He wanted to take his time and tease him, but as he took his cock in hand and stroked it to fullness, he heard a whine from Gadreel and his mouth started to water. 

He took him into his mouth and suckled at the head, rolling his tongue under the tip, massaging the length, and sank his mouth down on him until he prodded the back of his throat.

“Sam,” Gadreel hissed. “That’s incredible.”

Sam closed his eyes and swallowed at the tip. It had been a while for him, but he wanted to get back to being able to sink it into his throat and keep it there. When he came up for air, he gasped a little, and sat up to give himself a few strokes and get his breathing even. Gadreel’s face was flushed. He looked at what Sam was doing to himself and mirrored it, keeping pace with him and even pushing into his fist as Sam was. 

“That’s beautiful,” Sam encouraged him, tone gentle. He wiped his mouth and crawled up over him, settling his weight over his thighs. He lined them up and took Gadreel’s hand, showing him how to take them both in hand and stroke with a delicious mutual friction. Their hands together could keep them tight together, and Gadreel gasped when Sam began to thrust against him. 

Sam couldn’t do much but groan and shut his eyes, trying to keep going as long as possible before he burst. 

Gadreel rolled his hips and groaned low, and for a tantalizing few seconds, was even harder in his hand. Sam looked down at his bewildered face and saw the adoration in his eyes— he held his breath as his orgasm hit him so hard it almost hurt. His spine curled. The angel gasped and spurted too, shuddering and sealing his eyes shut. 

Sam slowly let go of their members and reached for an old t-shirt, which weirdly enough reminded him of his college days. Next time he’d have to get a towel beforehand, like a civilized adult. He wiped Gadreel’s chest slowly, still shivering now and then with every tiny shift in his body. 

“Sam,” Gadreel sighed, smiling with his eyes heavy-lidded.

“Yeah?” He’d cleaned them up enough and went to flop beside him. 

“That was five minutes.” The angel grinned.

Sam laughed softly. “Next time, longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it!  
Thanks for reading!   
(I really live off comments and collect them like a greedy dragon with a very specific horde.)
> 
> [Tumblr Masterpost for Supernatural Canon Big Bang](https://burningwicker.tumblr.com/)


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